The proliferation of high volume manufactured, portable electronic devices has encouraged innovation in both functional and aesthetic design practices for enclosures that encase such devices. Manufactured devices can include a casing that provides an ergonomic shape and aesthetically pleasing visual appearance desirable to the user of the device. Surfaces of casings molded from thermoplastic compounds can be shaped and polished to a highly reflective finish; however, the polished reflective surface can reveal minor variations in the final surface geometry. Molded casings can include complex geometric shapes that are difficult to finish to a uniform surface appearance. Prior art techniques can result in a tactilely smooth finish with an undesirable variation in visual reflective appearance. Moreover, due to the soft nature of polishing media, it is difficult to provide a consistent polishing process over a surface of the housing resulting in visually obvious variations in the surface finish.
Thus there exists a need for a method and an apparatus for polishing a three dimensional curved edge of an object resulting in a visually smooth and consistent reflective appearance.